DACS Board of Directors - Wednesday, September 14, 2011

By Bruce Preston

Called to order: 7:15 PM.

Attending: Richard Corzo, Jeff Setaro, Jim Scheef, Drew Kwashnak, Bruce Preston, Patrick Libert
Guests: Charles Bovaird

Minutes of Last Meeting: Accepted with correction: Possible Topic - “How it’s done – fill in OS" was suggested by Drew, not Andy.

DACS Treasurer’s Report for August, 2011
Balance on hand 8/1/11 $6,012.62

INCOME             
Dues $336.49       
Bank Interest $0 .57        
Total $337.06
                 
EXPENSES                      
Agent Change fee  $20.00
Corporation fee – Connecticut     $50.00
Printing of fliers $156.00 
Resource Center Phone $66.11    
Resource Center Security $79.60
Total $371.71
Balance on hand 8/31/11   $5,977.97

Membership Report
7/5/2011 8/2/2011 9/4/2011 Meeting date
JULY AUG SEP
146 148 147 Paying members
144 145 144 w/ email addresses
2 1 0 New members         
100 100 100 DACSDOC printed
75 76 76 DACSDOC mailed
55 56 56 DACSDOC mailed-memb
6 6 6 DACSDOC mailed-other
14 14 14 DACSDOC mailed-free lib

General Meeting Attendance 
July: "VYNL to MP3" Bruce Preston
Aug: "AVAST on-line security"
Sept: "Investment Tools" Dan O'Connor"
July Aug Sept
37 36 30 Seat count
32 32 23 Members signed in
3 4 3 Visitors signed in

Old Business

1. General meetings
• September 6: Dan O’Connor—Investment Tools Preview: Jim Scheef, Review: Steve Harkness.
• October 4: Mike Kaltschnee—Online Video and Streaming Devices Preview: Allan Ostergren, Review: Richard Corzo.
• November 1: Andy Woodruff and Sean Henderson—Recording and Editing Live Music, Preview: Drew Kwashnak, Review: Bruce Preston.
• Possible future topics:
  • Richard has contacted the Ridgefield Library to get a contact for the IBM Watson project. The librarian offered to make contact on our behalf.
  • Drew suggested “How is it done with <fill in OS>?” We could use Mikogo to demo the same operations for Windows, Mac and Linux to flip between environments. 
    We are to put together a list of things that might be interesting, such as:
    
    • Setting up multi-platform network
    • Setting up file sharing
    • Setting up print sharing
    • Various similar applications for …
  • Drew was to test the newly released Mikogo for Linux with Bruce.
  • Andy would like a Windows presentation of “how-tos” for tuning the O/S—Safe Mode, MSCONFIG, turning off unneeded services, Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper (Beta), etc.  Do we want to include XP?  Is there any point in discussing Vista since it is more like Windows 7?
  • Too early for David Pogue – will shoot for early next year.
  • Virtual Machines – use for running legacy programs such as old games etc.
  • Windows 8 developer preview with new Metro interface.
  • Smart Computing’s “Presentation in a Box” is still a possibility.
2. Open positions
   • Due to geographic relocation, Joseph Tobin has officially resigned from the DACS board so we can need to look for a replacement.  Richard has identified a prime candidate that he will approach.
   • The membership chairperson position is still open.  Due to change of location, the ‘greeter’ needs not be outside in the lobby.  Membership records might be maintained by a person other than the greeter.  We might look at rotating the greeting function.
3. Andy, Drew and Shawna Kwashnak put together the DACS display showing this month at the Danbury Library. Annette, Jim, Andy, and Richard worked on an update of the DACS trifold brochure to make it available at the library display, for DACS visitors, and wherever we want to publicize DACS.
4. The dacs.org domain registration is temporarily on Jim Scheef’s DynDNS.com account. If we copy the Windows-hosted site to Linux-based Bluehost we can change the registration back to Bluehost. Jim is working on migrating the calendar from ASP/Access to PHP/MySQL. The feedback form also needs to be updated.  Work has begun, will be continued by Richard and Jim.
5. No update on 2010 income report and 2011 budget was available.

New Business

1. We need to find a new venue for the general meetings. Due to construction the hospital auditorium is no longer available for the remainder of this year.
   • We are looking at Broadview Middle School not far from the hospital, if they can provide Internet access.
   • Bruce will provide a document to Richard that details how a DACS router might be used to isolate the DACS presenter from the site’s LAN.
   • Dave Green is also offering us Valley Presbyterian Church in Brookfield.
2. Charlie mentions that the HelpLine in DACS.DOC is essentially obsolete. Some of the few remaining contacts aren’t even DACS members any more. We should replace this in DACS.DOC with a mention of the various DACS SIG forums (http://forum.dacs.org) where members can get help online.  Richard will confirm that subscribing to a forum can be set up to instantly send an e-mail when a forum is touched.  The help line area should be replaced with a link to forum.dacs.org.